Let the children play​and Let them Play ​In the Richest Classroom of All

"I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected. Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to extreme old age." -Henry David Thoreau

Welcome!

Blue Ridge Forest School is for children ages 3-6 that currently takes place two mornings a week at Ivy Creek Natural Area. The children and teachers spend the entire morning immersed in nature: playing, exploring, learning, growing, and thriving. We have additional programs and services in the works, so stay tuned!

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” -William Butler Yeats

At Blue Ridge Forest School, we support the young child's full developmental needs: physical, cognitive, and social-emotional. According to best practices in early childhood education, children need abundant and regular opportunities to move freely outdoors, fill their senses, study natural laws, experiment using open-ended materials, problem-solve, take initiative, collaborate, use their imagination, and develop social skills through child-led play. Being a part of a consistent community of mixed-aged children in an outdoor setting, facilitated by responsive, highly-qualified adult guides, allows for this whole-child development to occur at this critical period in a person's life. The results are empowered, active learners, rather than passive consumers of information. The results are relaxed and joyful children that take care of each other and the world around them.

Children with these nature-rich, playful, child-centered experiences learn to manage risks, have better critical-thinking skills, score higher on standardized tests, are more relaxed, have better focus, better social skills, and have healthier, more neurologically-integrated bodies (visit the "Resources" section for links to this research).

Becoming connected to a natural place during childhood--to intimately experience it change week by week, season by season--will provide gifts of skill, wisdom, and a sense of wonder that will last a lifetime. These consistent, quality outdoor experiences are often difficult to provide within the framework of our modern lifestyle. It is such a privilege to be able to help Charlottesville's families meet this need!

2019/20 enrollment and summer camp information is now available! Check out our newsletter for details.

Join us at the Eastern Region Association of Forest and Nature Schools (ERAFANS) Virginia Teacher Retreatthis April 2019 at Wildrock (Crozet, VA)! We will be presenting, along with many other wonderful speakers and nature-based early childhood programs across the east coast!

​“I have found in my many years of teaching young children, and in my years as a mother of young boys, that most children are happiest at play outdoors. Young children are close to the realm of nature because they are still very natural beings. Because their consciousness is not yet separated from the environment, because they still live in the consciousness of oneness, of unity, they belong still to the natural world. In time they will belong to themselves, as the process of individuation becomes complete. But for about the first seven years, they are still at one with the world they inhabit. The process of separating from the parents and from the environment buds only around age seven. Before that, the child is moved along by life, something like the way a tree’s leaves dance in the breeze. The young child responds to the environment in a very unself-conscious way, a very natural way, and the open, complex, and diverse environment of the outdoors gives him that opportunity. If, in his excitement at a butterfly, he needs to dance and pirouette dizzyingly around the garden, no one has to say, “Be careful of the table.” If he needs to shout for glee or weep for sorrow, he is free.” (page 99)